Herbert Boyer

Herbert Boyer is an American biochemist who, with Stanley N. Cohen, demonstrated that genes could be transplanted from one organism into bacteria and made to function there, a technique that became the practical foundation of genetic engineering. Boyer's laboratory had already characterized restriction enzymes from E. coli with properties well suited to gene splicing by the late 1960s, and this work fed directly into the 1973 experiments with Cohen showing that bacteria could be engineered to take up and express foreign genetic material. In 1977 his laboratory reported the first synthesis and bacterial expression of a peptide-coding gene, and in 1978 his team produced human insulin using genetically engineered bacteria, demonstrating that recombinant DNA technology could manufacture a medically important human protein at scale. Boyer co-founded the biotechnology company Genentech in 1976 with venture capitalist Robert Swanson, helping establish the commercial biotechnology industry, while also serving as professor of biochemistry at the University of California, San Francisco from 1976 to 1991. He received the National Medal of Science in 1990 among numerous other honors for his role in founding genetic engineering.